Eleanor
BOOK NAME: Viola in Reel Life
AUTHOR: Adriana Trigiani
I just finished the book Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani. This book is a realistic fiction book. It’s about a girl named Viola who has to move from her beloved home in Brooklyn to an all-girls boarding school in Indiana. She has to leave her BFFAA (best friend forever and always) Andrew, and replace him with three new roommates, Romy, Marisol, and Suzanne. They actually seem to want to be there. At first she hates it but then she realizes this could be a good change. She also gets a boyfriend. Viola loves filming, that’s what her life is around. She keeps a video diary and everything. So she begins filming for the school and enters a video contest. This year might be the best for her.
This book was not the worst but not the best. I would not recommend it. For about a day she hates school and then she likes it, but she mentions it throughout the book. She keeps saying that I can’t believe I was so mean in the beginning but she was only grumpy for one day. Also I get it if someone kind of obsesses over her first boyfriend but she counts how many times she sees him. She will say like two kisses, one dance, and three hugs. I mean that seems just a little weird, doesn’t it?
Thank you for reading this review!
BOOK NAME: Ghost Town
AUTHOR: Annie Bryant
I just finished a book called Ghost Town by Annie Bryant. It’s the 11th book in the Beacon Street Girls series.
What happens is, the girls meet up with two country stars named Nik and Sam, and it turns out that they are the same age as the Beacon Street Girls. They decide to go to the ski resort that Nik and Sam are going to; Nik and Sam say they can take two of the girls. Of course, all five of the girls want to go, but since they can’t, they pull straws. Isabell and Katani are the winners. Too bad for Avery, Charlotte, and Maeve – they are stuck going to the resort in an old Jeep with Charlotte’s dad.
While they are traveling the Jeep breaks down, and the only place close by is an old ghost town. The girls have to sleep in a beat-up old hotel that last functioned 50 years ago. When they go to the kitchen to see if there is food, they are surprised to find that there is some and it hasn’t expired. Since no one has been there in 50 years, is it possible that there’s a ghost living in the hostel. It sure seems like it when Maeve stays up late and sees a mysterious figure…
Meanwhile, Isabel and Katani are wondering where the heck their friends have gone. Have they gotten lost? The two girls are having a good time with Nik and Sam but they want the rest of their group back, too.
Imagine if you were Isabel and Katani and your friends were missing. How would you feel? I’d feel terrible!
I liked this book. It was especially fun that the author gave two points of view. Also, I thought the whole concept of a ghost town was cool. I’d hate to think there was a ghost wandering around in a hotel where I slept. I recommend this to all girls; you’ll like it.
BOOK NAME: Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters
AUTHOR: Lesley M.M. Blume
I just finished a book called Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters. Yeah, I know; it’s a long title!
This book is about a girl named Cornelia, whose mom is a professional pianist, and is always away at concerts. With Lucy (Cornelia’s mom) away at concerts all the time, Cornelia never gets to spend time with Lucy. I would hate to have a mom like that.
One day Cornelia walks by a door in her apartment, and there is a sign on the door that says, Chien Bizarre. What does that mean? Cornelia asks herself. Eventually she meets the people who live next door. The people who live next door are a woman and a man. They are not married but only friends. The woman has a lot of stories to tell Cornelia. Cornelia visits her neighbor a lot just to hear the stories, and she thinks that the woman is very interesting. I think that the reason Cornelia visits her neighbors so much is to get her mind off her mother.
One day Cornelia comes over to her neighbor’s house and finds her typing away on a typewriter. Her neighbor is writing a book. She won’t tell Cornelia what it is about though! Cornelia finds out what the book is, so if you want to know I think you should read the book!
I liked this book because one chapter is about Cornelia, and the next one is one of her neighbor’s stories, and so on through the book. These stories are very interesting and fun. I do admit that in the beginning of the book I did get bored. Once she meets her neighbors it gets very interesting, so I do recommend it.
BOOK NAME: Hoot
AUTHOR: Carl Hiaasen
I just finished the book Hoot. It’s by Carl Hiaasen. It is one of the best books I have read this year. It’s about a middle-school kid named Roy. He is the “new kid” at school, so the bully, Dana, picks on him all the time. One day on the bus, Dana digs his fingers into Roy’s temples and makes him look out of the window. Roy sees a tan, blond-haired kid running past the bus stop who is not wearing any shoes. Roy wonders why he is not getting on the school bus.
When Roy sees the same kid the next day, he runs off the bus to chase him. While he’s trying to catch the kid, Roy knocks down a girl named Beatrice who is the running kid’s stepsister. The running kid has found out that there is going to be a pancake house in an empty lot where there are owl dens. He has many different ways to keep the owls from being bulldozed. The pancake company says that there are no owls and that they are wild chickens, how bizarre! Though those “wild chickens” definitely look like owls.
So Roy gets involved with the running kid, whose nickname is “Mullet Fingers” and his owl plan. “Mullet Fingers” plan is to try and save the owls. He even gets poisonous snakes involved! If you want to know how, read the story. “Mullet Fingers” is called that because he can catch a mullet (a type of very fast fish) with just his bare hands. Roy also has to deal with Dana and he finds out things about Beatrice’s life. Dana tries to strangle Roy, punch him and kick him, but things turn out good for Roy (Read the book!!!). Beatrice’s stepmom is really mean to Beatrice. She yells at her all the time and doesn’t care for her. “Mullet Fingers” doesn’t even live with his mom; He ran away and never came back.
I loved this book! I liked how Roy actually cared about the owls instead of just doing nothing. I also liked how the author didn’t just pay attention to the owls. He made chapters just about Roy, too. I would recommend this book. I think anybody would like it because it’s not just about a girl or just about a guy. It’s about a girl and a guy, and owls.
BOOK NAME: Shug
AUTHOR: Jenny Han
I just finished a really good book called Shug. This book is about a girl named Annemarie, only her family calls her Shug. There are two reasons why she is called Shug, one because it is short for sugar, two because of a book called The Color Purple. That is her mom’s favorite book. There is a character named Shug Avery in it.
Shug is a very outgoing person and demanding. She comes from a small town and everyone loves her. She has two best friends, Mark and Elaine. She says Mark is her guy best friend and Elaine is her girl best friend. She and Mark have been best friends since forever, and they are neighbors. Then when she gets to junior high everything changes. Mark prefers his guy friends over her, and Elaine starts hanging out with other girls. That makes Shug feel bad because she doesn’t like the other girls that Elaine is hanging out with.
To make things worse, Shug’s sister Celia is the prettiest girl in town and all the boys love her. Shug thinks of herself as too tall, too freckled and not pretty. She also has to tutor a boy that she hates. She thinks her life is going down the drain. I really enjoyed this book and I think a lot of other girls would too. I liked how you could actually relate to it and that this could happen to a real person. The author described things very well so I could see how everything looked. I think the most interesting part of this book was when she gets her first kiss at the end of it. How exciting!
BOOK NAME: When Irish Guys are Smiling
AUTHOR: Suzanne Suplee
I just finished the book When Irish Guys are Smiling. This book is about a girl named Delk who goes on a “Students across the Seven Seas” (S.A.S.S.) exchange program. She goes away to Ireland with a group of other kids.
Delk is going on this trip because she wants to get away from her problems back at home. Her mother died two years ago, her dad has already married, and Paige (her stepmom) is going to have a baby. Her friends are also overly obsessed with a debutante pageant. Delk doesn’t want to the debutante pageants and she’s been invited to more than 10 parties. She wants to forget about all of this, so she decides to join the S.A.S.S. program.
While she is on the S.A.S.S. program she makes really good friends, and also meets a cute guy who lives at the farm next to the castle that they are living in. Did I mention that she lives in a castle? How cool is that? Anyway, she tries to keep it a secret that her mother is dead. It gets harder, though, when her friends start complaining about their own moms and she has nothing to say. The only person she tell is Pather (her boyfriend there), because his mother also died. They’ve gone through the same kind of thing, so she feels comfortable telling him this.
My favorite part of this book was when Delk’s friend Latreece, goes to a modeling agency for an interview with her aunt, without her parents knowing. Then later in the book her parents find out. Will she leave the S.A.S.S. group in Ireland or will she stay? Either way, I recommend that you read this book to figure it out, and I will be reading other books in this series about girls traveling in different countries.
BOOK NAME: The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
AUTHOR: Ann Brashares
I recently just finished the book The Second Summer of the Sisterhood a book that I would call realistic fiction. There are four characters in this book: Tibby, Lena, Brigdet, and Carmen. This book is about the four girls and a special bond that they have together. They found a pair of blue jeans last summer (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Book 1) that mysteriously fit them all, even though all of them are different sizes and have different body shapes.
The four girls have been friends since they were zero, since their moms met in a prenatal yoga class. Over the summer, they pass the pants to each person; the person who has the pants has them for one week. After one girl has the jeans for one week, she gives them to the next girl in line for the “lucky” pants.
I think that the most exciting part of this book was when Kostos comes back from Greece. Kostos has not seen Lena in a year and they have broken up, but then he comes back. Want to know what happens next? You’ll have to read The Second Summer of the Sisterhood yourself! I would definitely recommend this book, because it’s actually like a real girl’s life. It’s about friendship and trust and it is very interesting. I would give this book a four out of five.
